Jurgen Klopp has hailed Virgil Van Dijk’s Liverpool debut as a ‘fairy tale’.
Van Dijk’s first act of his Anfield career was to head home the winner for the Reds in their FA Cup third round clash with Everton on Friday.
The Holland international completed a £75 milliion move from Southampton earlier this week, making him the most expensive defender in football.
And Klopp was certainly impressed by Van Dijk’s overall performance which culminated in a decisive 84th-minute goal in front of the Kop.
“It was a fairy-tale,” he said.
“There aren’t a lot of fairy tales anymore so something like that is quite special. It was a difficult decision to make to include him.
“The first plan was not to start him. Dejan (Lovren) and Ragnar (Klavan) played a lot of games in recent weeks so I changed my mind this morning.
“Obviously, it was a good idea in the end because he showed a lot of the good things we want him to show in the future.
“Van Dijk was much better than I thought. My expectations are not easy to reach because I know how good he can be.”